Methods and apparatus for higher modulation support in LTE

Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to methods and apparatus for determining support for one or more modulation orders to use for the transmission of control channel(s) and data channel(s). In one aspect, a user equipment (UE) determines, based on at least three modulation and coding scheme (MCS) tables, a first modulation scheme to use for communications with a wireless device for a first subset of subframes, and a second modulation scheme to use for communications with the wireless device for a second subset of subframes. Each of the three MCS tables is associated with a different maximum modulation order. The UE monitors for a data channel transmitted in the first subset of subframes using the first modulation scheme. The UE monitors for a data channel transmitted in the second subset of subframes using the second modulation scheme.